Posted on 03/05/2008 4:16:01 PM PST by wagglebee
LOS ANGELES, March 5, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Thousands of homeschoolers in California are left in legal limbo by an appeals court ruling that homeschooling is not a legal option in the state and that a family who has homeschooled all their children for years must enrol their two youngest in state or private schools. Justice H. Walter Croskey in a written opinion said, "California courts have held that under provisions in the Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children."
The sweeping February 29th ruling says that California law requires "persons between the ages of six and eighteen" to be in "public full-time day school," or a "private full-time day school" or "instructed by a tutor who holds a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught".
The two youngest of Phillip and Mary Long's eight children must be enrolled in a state approved school. Phillip Long told WorldNetDaily, "We just don't want them teaching our children. They teach things that are totally contrary to what we believe. They put questions in our children's minds we don't feel they're ready for."
Mr. Long cited the state curriculum's inclusion of sex education, including its promotion of homosexuality as a normal lifestyle. "When they are much more mature, they can deal with these issues, alternative lifestyles, and such, or whether they came from primordial slop. At the present time it's my job to teach them the correct way of thinking," he said.
The Los Angeles-area family was targeted by Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services after one of the children reported "physical and emotional mistreatment by the children's father," according to documents submitted to the court.
The 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles agreed with the trial court decision that had found, "keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where they could interact with people outside the family".
"There are people who could provide help if something is amiss in the children's lives, and they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents' 'cloistered' setting," the ruling said.
Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), said in a March 3 statement that the organization "strongly disputes this interpretation of California law" and is studying the decision.
The group called the ruling "a very bad decision" saying, "the opinion holds that homeschooling is not a legal option in California."
"If the opinion is followed, then California will have the most regressive law in the nation and homeschooling will be effectively banned, because the only legal way to homeschool will be for the parent to hold a teaching certificate. Parents should not have to attend a four-year college education program just to teach their own children."
Smith added, "California is now on the path to being the only state to deny the vast majority of homeschooling parents their fundamental right to teach their own children at home."
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Back to School: Organization Gives Reasons to Consider Homeschooling
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06082407.html
Home Schoolers Concerned Over New Ontario Compulsory Attendance Law
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/feb/06020301.html
Three More Families Appeal for Help as Germany Continues Crackdown on Homeschooling Families
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/apr/07041609.html
The people of California must fight back against this violation of their liberties!
And we homeschooled there. We signed up with a local private school, and we taught under the "independent study" program of that school. As far as the state knew, our child was attending the site school.
The families that got hassled were the ones who filed the state "affidavit" stating that they were providing a home education. Because we were affiliated with the private school, no affidavit was necessary. We weren't about to send up a red flag to Sacramento that we were homeschoolers.
Sorry, I meant to ping you too.
Kalifornia parents: bring your children to Texas. We love home skulers. Be legal. Be Texican.
My wife and I home schooled out kids in Texas until 6th and 8th grade. One time, at a school board meeting, the school superintendent asked me where my kids went to school (I had told her why they did not attend her school). I told her that such knowledge was none of her concern.
The so-called ISDs in Texas have NO authority to check up on home schooled kids.
When our kids went into Publik Skuel, they did just fine and are now out of the house and functioning as conservative young adults. :-)
We were actually thinking about moving there. Not now!
Fight this one all the way to the Supreme Court! Education is optional in America, and it needs to stay that way. Enough of grabbing personal freedoms and taking them away from the people.
The whole California judiciary and legislative branches are so corrupt they now break all the constitutional liberties gauranteed by the 1st ten ammendments to the constitution and they mock God, country and all moral
American citizens. And the political system continues its steady march to marxism, the last to know they have been destroyed by their own liberalism will be the left, of course.
>> and they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents’ ‘cloistered’ setting,”
Better a cloistered environment than a coital’d one.
Maybe that is what they are trying to do.
Kind of like another form of "ethnic Cleansing".
Well, now our children will be forced into socialist indoctrination centers.
The abuse just continues.
The legal work-around (then) was to set up my own private school, with Public Safety and Health Inspections, etc... which I did!
All the kids are now adults thriving as productive members of society, earning a living on their own.
So... I agree with a poster that tied this action with the fading revenue from massive exodus from the idiotic public ‘education’ system.
Sad thing is that a lot of those idiots move east and continuosly try to promote their own socialist ideas in other States!
Do not give into this madness; fight it all the way to the Supreme Court. Give no quarter!! It is your PATRIOTIC duty!
from Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Do consenting, adult Californians have a Constitutional right to engage in heterosexual sex, not for pay? E.g. between husband and wife?
These poor kids will need to be put on Schindler's list.
Ain't statism grand!
Here’s how to fight back against these liberal Carter/Clintoon appointees.
Google Earth, their phone numbers, email addresses, etc.
Ever thus to Stalinist judges.
Get out. California’s not worth it.
Bump to find
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.